


Life Choices

by faithfulpenelope



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 19:04:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7982773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithfulpenelope/pseuds/faithfulpenelope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something about dealing with James Kirk that makes Chris Pike seriously question his life choices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Choices

**Author's Note:**

> Because long-exasperated father figure Chris Pike is the BEST Chris Pike.

_No response._

That’s the message Chris Pike’s comm gives him, for the tenth time in a row.

 _No response_ from Jim Kirk’s comm. _No response_ from Leonard McCoy’s comm. _No response_ from the men who are due for a debriefing in an hour but have not been heard from since around midnight the night before, when they were last seen shepherding the last of the Enterprise crew out of the bar.

Pike rubs his head, then his quad, and sighs. He pushes up against his cane and walks himself, slowly, out into the atrium of Starfleet headquarters. Across the wide hall, he spots two lieutenants, huddled together in conversation.

“Sulu! Uhura! Get over here!”

The two of them startle, then hustle over to where Pike stands. “Admiral,” they chorus, and Sulu shoves his comm into his pocket.

“Let me guess. Trying to get a hold of your esteemed captain?”

Sulu’s face drops, like he’s been caught stealing from his mother’s purse. “I – uh – “

“I know you all went drinking last night,” Pike advises, and Sulu swallows hard.

“Yes, sir, that’s true, and the thing is –“

“It’s not their faults!” Uhura interrupts, and Pike arches an eyebrow.

“Care to explain, Lieutenant?”

Uhura sighs. “We did go drinking, you know, to celebrate the news –“ The news that the Enterprise retrofit would be done two months ahead of schedule, Pike figures – “and the captain and Dr. McCoy, they were keeping an eye on everyone, made sure everyone got home safe before they…”

“Before they started celebrating themselves,” Sulu finishes diplomatically.

“Before they got totally wasted,” Pike counters, and Sulu cocks his head as if to say, _you could put it that way._ “And now we have no idea where they are?”

“Oh, they’re at McCoy’s dorm,” Sulu says immediately, then freezes, like he regrets volunteering this information.

“And you know this how?” Pike asks, and Sulu hesitates, gives a bashful shrug of his shoulders. “Out with it, Lieutenant.”

“I may or may not have heard from my old roommate who heard from a friend in McCoy’s building that they woke him up at 3 a.m. and borrowed…” He pauses. “Refreshments.”

“What kind of refreshments, Lieutenant?”

“Brandy?” Sulu says, as if the uptick in his voice hasn’t given him away. Pike stares. “ _Saurian_ brandy.”

“Oh Jesus.” Pike massages that spot in his temple that he’s come to call the _Jim Kirk pain point_.

“We’ll go get them, sir, they’ll be here, we swear –“

“You have a debriefing in five minutes,” Pike interrupts. “I will go get them.”

Uhura makes a little _uh-oh_ sound. “Yes, sir,” Sulu squeaks.

“You’re dismissed.” Pike watches them scampers away and rubs his tired legs. “I wonder about my choices in life sometimes,” he mutters to himself, and calls for transport to the medical residents quad.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The door slides open under his override command and Pike steps into McCoy’s quarters like he’s stepping into a crime scene, braced against what he might find inside. The comm in the kitchen beeps incessantly, determined to be heard, and Pike clears the alerts on it but not before reading through a series of messages from Sulu and Uhura that grow in intensity and urgency until Uhura’s final _PIKE is coming NOW and you're not going to be captain for much longer if you don't get your DRUNK ASSES OUT OF BED_. The refrige door is open and there’s an empty carton of what used to be Chinese on the counter, two forks lying next to it. Pike nudges the door shut with his cane, steps over a leather jacket – Jim’s, if the blood stain on the collar is any indication – and kicks a lone boot to the side, where it finds its kin, if not its mate, under the counter. The living room is largely unharmed, aside from a shirt on the couch and a glass of water sweating condensate rings onto the coffee table, but there’s a full set of clothes in the doorway to the bedroom, as if someone had shed them like a molting snake. There’s an Old Miss t-shirt on top, which means it’s McCoy’s, which means he is, most likely, naked.

Pike once again finds himself questioning his life choices as he steps over the pile into the bedroom.

The room is dark and smells mildly of bourbon – but hey, for all Pike knows, McCoy’s bedroom always smells of bourbon – but it’s easy to see the two figures in the small bed. McCoy’s stretched out on his stomach like a face-down Vitruvian Man, Kirk curled up at his side, one arm wrapped around the other man’s waist, his head on his back. His foot is wrapped around McCoy’s thigh, just below the edge of his boxers – _thank god for small favors,_ Pike thinks – and they are both deep in sleep, a soft snore coming from the depths of Kirk’s nasal passages.

Pike clears his throat, loudly. Neither stirs. “Captain,” he tries in his best command voice, and Kirk seems to give a little snuffle before he curls up tighter around McCoy. Pike huffs, then keys a quick command into the computer. There’s a brief moment of silence and then the room is filled with the unholy sound of the emergency klaxon, red lights strobing on and off with a seizure-inducing intensity. McCoy snaps straight up into a drunken cobra pose, instantly awake and aware, if not coherent.

“What the _fuck_ – what’s – _goddamn_ red alert – “ Pike shuts down the alarm, and McCoy flips himself over onto his back to stare at Pike. “ _Jesus Christ, man._ ”

Kirk, for his part, wakes more calmly, seemingly less perturbed about the noise and lights than about being thrown off of his human pillow. He blinks at Pike, then at McCoy, and back at Pike again. “I’ve had this dream before,” he mutters, “except we’re usually all naked.”

Pike sighs.

“Are you _fucking_ serious right now,” McCoy hisses, and shoves a foot, _hard_ , into Kirk’s hip. Kirk yelps but holds tight, which less keeps him on the bed than pulls McCoy off with him, and it’s a good fifteen seconds of cursing and flailing and way too much bare skin before they right themselves, if two grown men on the floor, tangled in the bedsheets like toddlers, can ever be called _right._

Pike pinches the bridge of his nose, tries to will away the headache pounding in his temples. “Are you two done?” he asks tightly, and Kirk at least has the decency to look somewhat ashamed. McCoy just looks nauseated.

“What can we do for you this fine morning, Admiral?” Kirk manages, as if he’s not near naked and probably still a little drunk on the floor with his CMO in front of a highly-ranked member of Starfleet Command.

“I had to make sure you weren’t _dead_ ,” Pike grits out, “seeing as how you’re due for debriefings in forty minutes.”

Kirk’s mouth puckers up into a round ‘o’ as he takes this in. “Right,” he recovers weakly. “Right. 10-4. We’re on it. Right, Bones?” He elbows McCoy, who appears to have fallen back asleep, his head against the side of the bed. “ _Right, Bones_?”

“I’m awake,” McCoy says way too loudly, jolting upright. “I’m awake.”

“See? He’s awake. I’m awake. We’re all awake.” Kirk shoves up on his knees as he speaks, uses the foot board to haul himself to standing, where he wavers dangerously. ”We are ready to do this.”

“Sure you are,” Pike says dryly.

“I’m not,” McCoy moans from the floor. “I’m not ready for any of this.”

“Nonsense,” Kirk proclaims brightly. “A quick shower, a little coffee, and we’ll be good as new, Admiral, ready to do our part for the ‘Fleet.”

“Not a word of that is true,” McCoy whines, and Kirk gives him a sharp kick, the heel of his foot to McCoy’s backside. “Ow, you _fucker_.”

“Tell it to the footprint on my hip,” Kirk hisses back.

” _Gentlemen_.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” Kirk says automatically, not even paying attention to him, and Pike wonders just how many times in his life Jim Kirk has uttered those two sentences, and just how often he’s meant them. Kirk nudges McCoy again and there’s a flurry of slaps before Kirk gets a hold on McCoy’s upper arm and hauls him up right. McCoy blinks, swallows, and makes an uncomfortable gagging noise.

Pike and Kirk step back. Way back.

But McCoy takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly.  Pink replaces some of the grey in his face. “Okay, we’re good,” he says. He sounds less than certain about it.

“I’ll stay over here, thanks,” Kirk rejoins. Pike sighs again.

“Well.” Kirk claps his hands together as if to say, _that’s that_. “Thank you, Admiral, for the wake-up call. And for, you know, not sending us to the brig for conduct unbecoming. And we, uh, we will see you in forty minutes – “

“ _Thirty_ minutes,” Pike interrupts.

“ _Thirty_ minutes at headquarters. Excellent.” He turns to walk Pike out but catches a foot on McCoy’s discarded clothing, and Pike watches as the captain of the Federation’s flagship face-plants into a lounger. “Ow,” Kirk says feebly from the cushions. “I’m okay.”

“Damn it, Jim, what did you – “ McCoy’s rant cuts off as his sudden movement sends his stomach into outright revolt and his face turns green. “Admiral,” he manages weakly, before disappearing into the bathroom to vomit.

“And this is who they gave my baby to,” Pike says mournfully, and lets himself out.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The doors swish open with two minutes to spare, and Pike lets out a relieved breath as Kirk and McCoy come striding in. Kirk’s cheek is still slightly pink from where he landed and the grey of McCoy’s dress uniform is not doing anything for his complexion but they’re _there_.

“Captain,” Archer says disapprovingly.

“Admiral,” Kirk chirps back.

“Lieutenant Commander.”

McCoy’s cheek twitches and Pike watches Kirk slide one leg over and press his heel into McCoy’s foot. “Admiral,” McCoy grits out.

“So nice of you to join us. We weren’t sure you were going to make it.”

“Wouldn’t think of missing it,” Jim says cheerfully, willfully ignoring the annoyance in Archer’s voice. “We just had a brief meeting with Admiral Pike to attend to but we’re here now.”

Archer’s head whips around to glare at Pike. “Glad to see you fit us in,” Archer hisses in.

Kirk grins.  

McCoy burps.

 _This is your life, Christopher,_ Pike thinks, and sighs.  


End file.
